


The Man With The Broom In His Hand

by mad_martha



Series: Coming Home [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Humour, Innuendo, Kilts, M/M, broom!fic, utilikilts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unlike Harry, Ron had no compunction about shedding his shirt ... or, it seemed, his trousers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man With The Broom In His Hand

That year, the summer heat arrived long before the Hogwarts Express snaked its way wearily into Kings Cross to deposit its cargo of hot and fractious pupils back into the arms of their families for the duration of the long holiday. 

Harry had drawn the short straw out of the teachers and was tasked with maintaining a visible presence on the train throughout the journey.  He offered his son the opportunity to Floo home in advance, but Sirius opted instead to join his school-friends on the train, so the pair of them met up on the scorching platform and by mutual agreement they decided to drop their gear off at the house and head into Diagon Alley for tea, instead of trying to rustle up something at home.  At the last minute Harry rattled Scruffy the lurcher's lead at him invitingly, but Scruffy, exhausted after a whole day of trotting up and down the carriages greeting his admirers, chose to stretch out for a nap on the cool pantry floor instead.

"You've probably got the right idea," Harry told the dog, and they left him in charge of the house.

It was too hot for ordinary robes, so Harry chose to outrage wizard convention by wearing a loose t-shirt over his jeans; much as he would have liked to wear shorts, he didn't feel the public was ready to see his knees.  Sirius had no such compunctions, and would have shed his t-shirt too if his father would have allowed it.

"Though I'm not sure that qualifies as a t-shirt anyway," he commented, surveying with resignation the latest fashion in baggy, sleeveless, tie-dyed mesh shirts as modelled by his heir.  "And if you don't watch out, you'll look like you had a nasty accident with a shrimp net.  You can still get sunburn through string shirts."

"Yeah, Dad, I _know_."  Sirius rolled his eyes.

Harry tamped down on the urge to nag.  "Are you coming with me to Ron's?"

"Yeah, okay."

They ambled down the Alley, perspiring gently in the late afternoon heat.  Although the street was as busy as ever no one was moving at any great speed, and everybody was doing things to keep cool; one shop seemed to be doing a roaring trade in self-fanning straw hats, while another sold parasols and umbrellas that gently sprinkled cool droplets of water on their owners, and Florean Fortescue's café was packed out with ice-cream worshippers. 

Eventually they came to the turn-off that led into the little back alley where Ron's workshop was located.  The wooden double-doors were thrown open and racks were standing outside, loaded with partially finished broom handles that glistened with fresh basecoat.  Ron himself was inside, presumably keeping his redhead's fair skin out of the sun, but his appearance brought Harry and Sirius up short on the doorstep.  Unlike Harry, Ron had no compunction about shedding his shirt ... or, it seemed, his trousers.

He was wearing nothing but a khaki-coloured kilt and the sturdy hobnailed boots he always wore when he was working.

Harry blinked, temporarily rendered speechless.

Ron glanced up at them casually.  "Hullo!  Am I late or are you early?"

Sirius said it for both of them.  "Whoa ...!  What are you wearing?"

"Eh?"  Ron glanced down at himself and said briefly, as though it was perfectly obvious, "Oh.  It's a Utilikilt."

"A what?" Harry asked in a strangled tone.

"A Utilikilt.  Why, haven't you seen one before?  It's a lot cooler in this weather, I can tell you, and it's got pockets and things I can hang my tools on - " Ron demonstrated by hanging a chisel from a loop on the belt, "and there's a lockable pouch I can hang on the belt if I need it.  I took that off earlier," he explained.  "It kept getting tangled up in the tail-twigs."

Harry tried in vain to think of something to say to this.  Sirius, however, sized up the situation and decided that it wasn't really for him.

"You know what, I'm just going to see if Mr. Lupin's at the library," he said, swallowing a snigger rather audibly.  He backed out of the workshop and took off; Harry could hear his chortles as he ran down the alley.

"Anyone'd think he'd never seen a bloke's legs before," Ron commented tolerantly.  "You all right, mate?  What was the trip home like?"

"Arg," Harry said, and he was mildly pleased that he managed even that much.

Ron saw his face and began to laugh.  "Come off it, Harry, you've seen my legs enough times!"

But it wasn't _just_ his legs, as Harry would have told him if only he could get his throat to cooperate.  It was the legs, the bare torso and, dammit, the _kilt_.

Ron was wearing a kilt.  Harry's eyes nearly crossed with the effort of not following the logical train of thought that always accompanied the idea of men in kilts.

"You daft bugger!" Ron told him, grinning.  "Stop doing a goldfish impression and make yourself useful - there's an icebox with a few butterbeers in it on the bench back there.  Grab me one and help yourself."

The icebox sounded like an excellent idea.  Harry found the chilly little crate on Ron's 'office' bench at the back of the workshop; this was the bench he kept all his orders, worksheets and drawings on, out of the way of the main work area.  He flipped the lid up to reveal the remains of Ron's lunch (half a pasty wrapped in waxed paper, for Ron didn't eat much while he was working), an empty flask that had probably held cold tea, and three butterbeer bottles delicately frosted with condensation.  For a moment he stood there, letting the cold draft from the box cool his face - and other parts - then he grabbed two bottles and closed it again.

"Ta mate."  Ron took a long swig, then promptly wiped the cold glass bottle around his neck, throat and chest.  "I needed that, it's a real scorcher today."

Harry watched helplessly as droplets of condensation meandered down his friend's throat and chest.  He didn't think Ron was doing it on purpose , but …

"Have a seat," Ron invited him casually, nodding to a tall wooden stool a few feet away.  "I'm going to be a bit longer here – that apprentice Cleansweep sent me last month chucked in the Snitch a couple of days ago, right in the middle of a big order from the Wimborne Wasps.  I've been here since six a.m., sanding and basecoating handles."

Harry pulled himself up onto the stool and uncapped his butterbeer.  A quick swig restored his voice and enabled him to concentrate on what Ron was saying rather than what he was wearing.  Or not wearing. 

"Is that what's hanging outside?" he asked.

"Yeah.  The company's short of finishers at the moment – well, the money's in _this_ side of the business, not in polishing – so I'm having to do the whole thing myself.  Honestly, I don't know what people expect when they sign up to train as a broomwright.  I lay it out straight for every apprentice I take on, and believe me, Cleansweep would rather I didn't, but what in Merlin's name am I supposed to do with some snotty kid who thinks they're going to be designing racing brooms on their first day?  Of course they don't like it much when they find out they're going to be cutting tail-twigs and mixing wax for the next six months, but you don't go from playing Quidditch at school straight to setting saddle charms."

"Bill said something similar about the last Cursebreaker apprentice he took on," Harry commented.

"Yeah.  The careers advice is slipping up somewhere."  Ron set down the broom he was working on for a moment and uncapped a large stone jar of polish.

"That looks like a refit."

"It is.  I can't do anything else on those brooms outside until the basecoat is dry.  This is one of Corky Fenwick's brooms."  Corky Fenwick was a Beater for the Appleby Arrows.  "He had a bit of a scrum in his last match and brought it to me for servicing – the rudder spell was knocked out of true.  He's lucky he didn't get chucked off, actually."  Ron scooped a generous amount of polish out of the jar with his fingers and slathered it onto the handle.  "I smoothed out a couple of dings in the shaft while I was at it.  This is a damn good broom – probably one of the last ones Dorcas Hickling made before she died.  She did a lot of custom work after she retired.  Her granddaughter's auctioning off some of her hand-made tools next week – I've put in a bid, but I don't know if I'll get them."

Harry barely registered the words – his eyes were riveted on Ron's hands, which were working the polish into the shaft of the broom-handle with strong, confident strokes, his fingers smoothing the wax into the wood while his thumbs flexed and rubbed in circles -

He settled the cold butterbeer bottle rather firmly on his lap and dragged his eyes back to Ron's face.  Ron wasn't doing this deliberately, he reminded himself.  There was nothing salacious about polishing a broom; they'd had _that_ conversation within a fortnight of Harry's return to England.

Harry had always assumed that polishing a broom handle involved some sort of equipment, not the bare-handed manipulation of soft wax into the grain with a movement that could arguably be described as 'caressing'.  Of course, he had personal experience of just how flexible and manipulative Ron's large, warm hands with their strong fingers and unexpectedly smooth palms could be –

The bottle wasn't nearly cold enough to deal with this.  He sent a wordless spurt of power into it and nearly froze the butterbeer solid against his crotch.

"So, how was the trip home?" Ron asked casually.  He scooped up another dollop of polish and applied it to the broom handle.  "Bet it was a bit hot and sweaty on a day like this."

Harry managed not to bite his tongue but it was a near miss.  "That's one way of putting it," he agreed feebly.  He'd never really stopped to consider just how many muscles in the shoulder and chest were involved when one was rubbing something, but he could see each and every one of Ron's flexing rhythmically under his skin.

"Not that that's ever stopped anyone messing around.  It's funny how you can still find energy for the stuff you want to do, even on the hottest day."

"Uh-huh," Harry mumbled.

Working down the length of the shaft, Ron had to straddle the broom and clamp it between his knees to hold it still while he continued waxing it.  This did interesting things to the drape and movement of the kilt, and Harry decided it would be safest if he just closed his eyes.  That didn't mean he couldn't hear the moist slicking sounds of polish being applied though, and he shifted restlessly on the hard wooden stool.  This was going to become overtly embarrassing very soon.

When Ron began to hum gently, Harry's eyes popped open and he stared accusingly at his friend.  Ron's tongue was protruding slightly as he concentrated, but there was an unmistakable smirk around it.

"You git," Harry said feelingly.  Ron laughed outright.  "You realise this is _exactly_ the kind of behaviour my ex was talking about when I introduced you two?"  Sirius's mother, Cleone, had had a field day with the fact that Harry's new _amour_ was someone who polished brooms for a living.

"Ah, she's just jealous!"

Actually, there was probably more truth in that than Harry was comfortable with.  Having had his eyes forcibly opened for him, by Hermione, to the fact that Cleone still held something of a torch for him, he had nevertheless not been blind to the fact that she was equally interested in Ron – not that she would ever admit such a thing.  It must have been quite galling for her to realise that neither of them returned her interest.

At least, Harry didn't _think_ Ron had been interested in her.  He wasn't about to ask.

"So," he said, trying to be casual in the face of Ron's ongoing relationship with the broom handle, "are you going to stand there all evening frotting that thing, or are you – oh, don't give me that look!"  For Ron was giving him a very pointedly raised eyebrow at the word 'frotting'.  "You started this, you pervert!"

"Want me to finish it, then?"

Harry rolled his eyes.  "Any more and it'll be lying back on your bench, smoking a fag."

Ron's shoulders began to shake again, but he tutted wickedly.  "Keep talking like that and I'll start thinking _you're_ jealous."

"Damn right I'm jealous!  Why are you wasting all that on some over-muscled Beater's broomstick – " Ron let out a shout of laughter, "when you could be giving _me_ a bloody good rub down, that's what I want to know?"

"I thought you were feeling a bit too hot?" Ron taunted him, as he picked up a length of chamois leather to finish the polishing with.

Harry groaned at the sight of it.  "I'm a bloody sight hotter now, you tosser!"

"Aw!  I'm not fooled, you know - you just want to find out what I'm wearing under my kilt."

Harry gave him a considering look.  "Well, there's that as well, now that you mention it …"

 

~~~

 

"I was supposed to be meeting Sirius for tea in Diagon Alley," Harry realised, some time later.

Ron snorted.  "Bit late to be thinking about that now!"

"Yeah, but he must have wondered where the hell I got to!"

Ron began to laugh all over again.  "Harry, mate, I know he's only fourteen but I think he had a pretty good idea where we both were!"

"Yeah, but – "

"He came home about half an hour ago.  I heard the Floo."

Harry managed to drag his eyes open enough to stare at Ron.  "I didn't hear him!"




"You wouldn't," Ron said smugly.  "You were still passed out with a silly grin on your face."

Harry thumped him.

 

 **_~ finis ~_ **


End file.
